The "revert to previous version of Windows" feature is a recovery option available in Windows 11. It allows you to revert to the previous version of the operating system after performing an upgrade, which is useful if the newer version is unstable or driven from mistakes. However, in most cases, you will only have 10 days to roll back the update.
Microsoft reduced the previous 30-day limit to 10 days, citing user behavior of the feature. But, if you like, you can extend the 10-day recovery period to 60 days in Windows 11 using a command prompt and registry hack. Here we show you how.
How to check and extend the rollback limit to go back to the previous version
You can run the Deployment Image Servicing Management (DISM) command line utility to extend the recovery period from 10 to 60 days. Here's how to do it.
- Press the button Win + X to open the menu in WinX .
- Then, click Windows terminal (administrator) to start the terminal app in elevated mode.
- By default, Windows Terminal uses PowerShell to run commands. If you want to use Command Prompt, click the drop-down button in the toolbar and select Command Prompt.
- Then, type the following command and press Enter to view the current time limit for the Go Back function:
DISM / Online / Get-OSUninstallWindow
- The output will show the number of days (10) currently set on your system.
- If you see Error 1168 – Element not found , it means that the old backup has been deleted and you cannot go back to the previous version for the current version.
- Then, type the following command to extend the 10-day limit for Go Back to Previous Version:
DISM /Online /Set-OSUninstallWindow /Value:NDays
- In the above command, replace NDays with the number of days you want to extend the time limit. For example, if you want to extend it to 50 days, the complete command will look like this:
DISM / Online / Set-OSUninstallWindow / Value: 50
- Press Enter and wait for the command to run. The output will show the message Operation completed successfully.
That's all. The next time you perform an update or install feature updates, Windows will keep the backup for 50 days before deleting it.
Extend the period Go back to the previous version using the registry editor
In some cases, you may encounter error 1168 - Item not found when running the DISM tool to extend the rollback time limit. This error occurs if Windows deleted the Windows.old and $ Windows. ~ BT folders at the end of the rollback period or during a manual cleanup by the user.
Fortunately, you can get around this error by adding an UninstallWindow DWORD value in Registry Editor. Here's how to do it.
- Awards Win + R to open the dialog Run .
- Type regedit and click OK to open the registry editor.
- In Registry Editor, go to the following path:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMSetup
- In the right pane of the installation key, locate the UninstallWindow value. Otherwise, create a new DWORD value.
- Right-click on the Configuration button, select New> DWORD (32-bit) value.
- Rename the value as UninstallWindow .
- Then, right-click on the value UninstallWindow and select Modification .
- In the dialog box Modification , select the option Decimal in Base . Then, type 50 in the field Value data . If you want to extend the time limit to 60 days, type 60 instead of 50.
- click on OK per salvare I modified it.
- Close the Registry Editor system and restart your PC. After restarting, you will have 50 days before the Go back to previous version of Windows option is greyed out in Windows 11
